Chicken or egg?Some may interpret it to mean we are predestined before we are chosen.
How free is anyone, really? Tell the fat man that he's completely free to stop eating too much and lose all the excess weight. Tell the alcoholic that all he has to do is decide to quit drinking, because he's completely free to do so. Tell any of us that we're altogether free to live a sinless life wholly pleasing to God. How often is it gonna happen, no matter how much we'd like it to. I'm free to get a PhD in Physics and a job as a professor, but how likely is it to happen?
And lets make it a bit worse. Homeless Jerry wanders the streets downtown, sleeps in doorways, eats out of trashcans, and spends what little money he gets on coffee and cigarettes (he doesn't drink alcohol or take drugs as far as I know). Most of the time, if you notice him at all, it's because he's standing on a corner or leaned against a wall somewhere, shaking his fist, and shouting the same swear word over and over and over and over until the spell passes.
Jerry (and he is real, BTW) is a slave to whatever is wrong with his brain. But you and I aren't, are we? At least not to the extent that Jerry is. But there's the thing. There are physical and mental limits on what we can, and what we will, do. Best intentions are fine, and will power is great, but it is, as the saying goes, not in us to command success. Cop out? Maybe, but the next time one of us actually manages to live without sin, then I'll put more stock in the sort of "free will" that brings salvation. For the rest of us poor knuckleheads jammed into a life of sin by our own mental and physical limitations, the direct intervention of a Savior is necessary. Our free will isn't going to save us any more than Jerry's free will is gonna make him sane.
But you obviously do have a will, so then you can't be a puppet.I'd say "no."
Having him with me and me doing what he wants is one thing. Being a puppet without any will of my own is another. There's nothing appealing about that.
Because He is only good, His will isn't free to be evil.I don't see why God doesn't have free will.. no one can keep Him from doing anything he wants. But Jesus came specifically to Earth to do his fathers will. He chose to do it, and he chose it freely out of his grace
I do.I know of no one who believes such a thing.
But you obviously do have a will, so then you can't be a puppet.
But now that we are certain we have a will & we are NOT "puppets", how could we ever doubt that our wikk isn't "free"?
Do we equate willpower with freedom?
I don't.
The will is affected by many things.
So we can jettison the puppet analogy as inadequate to the task of investigating this issue, hopefully.
We are not discussing the existence of our will, only trying to define it's limitations, if any.
And if I have Turret's syndrome, it is restricted by an inside factor, unless we consider our bodies as external to ourselves, in which case your we are as you say, restricted by outside factors.As for the free will, yes it can be restricted by outside factors.
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